


From the Dust Returned

by Darkwood_Princess



Category: Night at the Museum (Movies), The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), The Mummy Series
Genre: Gen, O'Connell's hate mummies, Oops, alex is older, and nicky, but hopefully wiser, larry just wants a nap, nicky wants to read those cool books, this does not change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-18 06:43:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11285817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkwood_Princess/pseuds/Darkwood_Princess
Summary: Larry Daley thought life would settle down after the Battle of the Smithsonian but a shipment from the Museum of Cairo which brings with it one very disgruntled Alex O'Connell, proves the old saying: "The more things change, the more they stay the same."OrNicky thought that no harm could really come from reading a book. Imhotep and Kahmunrah think otherwise.





	1. In Which We Find That Alex O’Connell Still Hates Mummies And Larry Daley May Be A Little Too Quick With His Flashlight

**Author's Note:**

> I was one of those children who spent hours pouring over history and mythology, and of the many things I loved, Egyptology is one of the few that stuck with me. I have loved these two fandoms for years and although I’m not fond of either one’s third movie (this fic is after Battle of the Smithsonian and Tomb of the Dragon Emperor never happened), I felt they could work together. So please enjoy this labor of love.

The thing about secret government coups, Alex O’Connell had found, was that they were always unfortunate. Devastating to the citizens who knew nothing about the change in hands, devastating to infrastructure when some hot headed young soldiers decided to shoot it out instead of talk it out, and, worst in his mind, it was devastatingly easy to steal important and supposedly guarded artifacts during governmental shut down.

(Honorary Medjai he may be, but Alex would be the first person to point out that Hamunaptra was hardly secure on a good day, let alone on one of the-world-is-ending-and-what-do-you-mean-the-Scorpian-King-Is-Real-Ones.)

So when Egypt had become the latest government to deal with the internal nightmare that was politics- some battle between three organizations whose names had been a gibberish of numbers, symbolism, and odd familial acronyms- he had made a decision that Alex just knew, deep in his bones, he would regret. He packed up all of the most dangerous artifacts he’d discovered and curated over the years and set  them all up to be shipped across the pond to an old family friend to be put on as a display of harmless, outdated, though interesting exhibit.

McPhee may have been a fussy, tea-pot of a man, but he’d nearly died of delight when Alex’s mother had agreed to be his mentor, even going so far as to recommend the man to the Bembridge Scholars. And while Evie was sadly long gone, Alex knew that McPhee would remember all that she’d done for him as a young man and besides, what museum could resist good old Egyptian artifacts?

(He’d been a child once upon a time and he certainly couldn’t. Deep down inside every crotchety old man lived a far younger one, just waiting for the right moment to reappear. Not much could make Alex feel young in his 80s, but the never ending mysteries of Egypt, now that was a panacea for much.)

Besides, he had grandchildren in New York that he didn’t get to see often. It would be good to see them in more than just hasty Skype calls and emailed photos.

And someone had to watch those _literally cursed books_. After all the hell he’d given Ardeth and Ardeth’s successor Razia over the years, Alex was determined to make sure no one ever used those again. He couldn’t let Section whatever, Armor (?), and he thought they called themselves Uncle, but everyone knew you cried Uncle when you were defeated, so that was probably his not so great hearing at play, get ahold of the books of Life and Death.

He was way too old to be dealing with Imhotep. Besides, it wasn’t the 30s anymore. You couldn’t explain away plagues as weird weather phenomena and zombies as an epidemic of some sort as bad water. No, the news people would get involved and then the world’s angriest recipient of the Hom-dai would end up with misguided followers of some sort with a social media page.

Alex could deal with a lot, but an Imhotep fan club? That would be above and beyond his pay grade.

XXX

Larry Daley was having a _moment_.

It was his second night back on the job after the Smithsonian Incident and all the nonsense that had entailed, and while the Tablet healed exhibits, he was flesh and blood with all the aches and bruises from taking on a megalomaniac Pharaoh with a mission. Explaining the whole situation to a rightfully enraged Ahkmenrah had been the cherry on the top of his week from the underworld, and while Larry was privately concerned at the level of fury the younger man had expressed (Larry’s ancient Egyptian was coming along, maybe not as much as Nicky’s, but whatever Ahk was calling his elder sibling was untranslatable), he knew it was truly warranted.

And now, when all he wanted to do was rest, McPhee had sprung this on him. The boxes were stacked neatly next to Rexy where the day delivery men had left them, the letters “Museum of Cairo” stamped in neat black ink.

Somehow Larry knew that they hadn’t meant Cairo, West Virginia.

_(But if they did, he wasn’t ready to meet the Mothman and Chief Cornstalk either.)_

No, he was going to have to deal with more Egyptian antiquities, and all he could hope was that whatever was in those boxes was more Ahkmenrah than Kahmunrah, because sunset was in 10 minutes and it took everyone at least five minutes to shake off the day’s cobwebs.  

At least Dexter was locked in the Hall of African Mammals. Larry was not giving him free reign with whatever was in those.

“Dad?” Oh, and of course Nicky would be here on a night when something new and unusual was added to the museum. Thankfully, he’d agreed to stand behind Larry until who knew what burst from those boxes. Honestly, Larry was starting to think if there were gods out there, they must find him absolutely hilarious. 

“Yeah, Nicky?” The boy was staring at the boxes, perplexed.

“Should they be making a knocking sound like that?”

Larry froze.

                The thumping was faint, soft, buried in what must have been a metric ton of careful wrapping within the wooden casing, but definitely there.

                “Aw come on! It’s not even sunset!”

XXX

                “ _Now this_ ,” Alex thought,” _this is the_ height _of stupidity. Forced to dive into an empty sarcophagus, moments before the movers came because some foolish secret agents of some sort were seeking me out. And then shipped overseas. I’ve never been so thankful for chips in the artifacts and express shipping.”_

That and _“How on Earth did Uncle Jon fit in one of these things to scare Mum repeatedly?!?”_

                Faint voices above him and the thump of his box, alerted Alex to the fact that they’d reached a destination of some sort. If he was lucky, he could push his way out of this confounded thing and figure out if it was possible to get the airlines to refund his tickets. Accidentally trapped in a sarcophagus would definitely be one they’d never heard before.

                He didn’t expect the lid of both box and sarcophagus to be removed carefully any more than he expected the sudden flashlight to the head when he jolted upwards suddenly, after being trapped in the dark, cramped space for 24 hours.

                “Dad, no!” was the last thing he heard before collapsing backwards, the world spinning around him and fading in a painful rush.

XXX

                Alex woke to the sound of soft voices conversing above him something along the lines of _Lawrence did it on accident_ and _He should recover, I’ve done my best_ , opening his eyes slightly to see that he’d been moved onto a couch of some sort. A woman in Native American Garb was conversing with a man dressed like Teddy Roosevelt, probably actors of some kind– did that mean he’d made it to the museum or that he was going nuts - and above him, staring down curiously with blue green eyes, was what looked like an Egyptian Pharaoh.

                His head still fuzzy, Alex let out a stunned noise of surprise and did the first thing that came to mind after a lifetime of nightmares where Imhotep won and his minions inherited the Earth.  

                He slugged him.

                Ahkmenrah went down like a sack of potatoes, yelping in surprise as the elderly gentleman darted out past a shocked Sacagawea and Teddy with more speed than should have been possible, right into the middle of the museum during a Saturday Night party.

                The very much alive, listening to the hits of the 80s, Museum of Natural History.

Ahk just knew this was going to be hard to explain when they caught the poor fellow.

                If he didn’t have a heart attack first.

                _Ra give him strength, Larry was going to be in so much trouble if their unexpected guest died of shock._


	2. In Which Larry Learns Some Unsettling Information and Our Villains Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which two lovers of Egypt have a long conversation, the Neanderthals play Twister, Larry can't believe his life, and Nicky reads from the Book of the Dead. 
> 
> Oh and it's all Dexter's fault. Yes, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the second chapter came a lot easier than the first! Please read and review! I'm writing this for fun, but it's awesome to know what you all think!

Alex knew he wasn’t dreaming. Dreams could technically include a brigade of faceless Civil War soldiers and Huns forming a conga line around an over excited Tyrannosaurus Rex while Christopher Columbus kept the beat, but there was a feeling in the air that let him know that whatever his remaining common sense might claim, the Museum of Natural History was very much alive.

 Besides, dreams had an almost hyper-real quality to them, like someone had sped up the picture just enough to let you know that you had left the realm of the awake. No, what was before him may have been fantastic, but it would take far more than a museum drunk on magic and Queen’s Greatest Hits to cause him to doubt his solid grasp on sanity.

But it did make what he’d just seen make quite a bit more sense. After all, it wasn’t the first time he’d woken and the first thing he’d seen was a Pharaoh, although it was the first time he’d woken to a living one.

(Imhotep was a disgraced high priest. He didn’t count.)

Behind him he could hear the scramble of the people who’d be in the room and he wondered just what they planned to do with him. After all he’d stumbled upon their secret and if there was something Alex knew intimately it was that secret keeping was a tough and often unforgiving job. But running wasn’t really an option, with an entire museum to search for him, and besides, he had this gut feeling that the people running into view weren’t prepared to truly hurt him. 

“Now see here sir, there was no need to resort to fisticuffs with our young Pharaoh.” It was the one who looked like Teddy Roosevelt speaking and Alex found himself wondering if he were the genuine article or a replica brought to life by whatever (most likely Egyptian) spell had this place enchanted beyond all belief.

“My sincerest apologies,” Alex continued with his snap decision that whatever this place was, it clearly wasn’t malevolent, despite his original fears that the young man with the rapidly bruising left eye was similar to the destructive high priest and his penchant for raising undead girlfriends. “I mistook your pharaoh for a far less savory character who I’ve had the misfortune of dealing with in the past.”

“Ah, you’re British!” said Pharaoh’s exclamation was delivered in a perfect Cambridge accent and Alex found himself relax almost involuntarily at the sound of home. It wasn’t heard very often in his line of work, far less than he was used to, and something about the way he spoke was so very familiar to his childhood, despite the few word’s he’d said.

(He noted that the Native American woman was watching him carefully, choosing to wait instead of speak. Automatically this launched her higher in Alex’s threat estimation. A quiet enemy could be a deadly one.)

“Yes, my name is Alexander O’Connell. I’m the Egyptologist whose work is sitting boxed up down there next to your main desk and being used as a,” he paused, squinting to get a better look over the distance, “Twister Mat it appears. It  also appears that I have accidentally interrupted your evening. My apologies for hitting you, but Imhotep was not a force to be trifled with and I’m afraid the older I get, the fuzzier I am upon waking.”

The Pharaoh nodded in response, “I am Ahkmenrah, the Fourth King of the Fourth Kings, and this is President Theodore Roosevelt and Sacagawea. You are forgiven for striking me, Medjai, as it was clearly not on purpose and if you have dealt with the creature, entirely understandable. Although,” he frowned in thought, “I’m not sure how the world is still around if he were released, meaning you must have found some way to circumvent the Hom Dai. So I guess,” the frown smoothed out into a smile, “congratulations are in order!”

Next to him Teddy smiled in greeting as the Pharoah clasped a hand on the Egyptologist’s arm, a bit puzzled at the majority of Ahkmenrah’s introductory speech but too polite to ask, while Sac merely nodded. All three noted that Alex’s eyes widened at the introduction and he smiled genuinely at the recognition and welcoming grasp.

“I see you noticed my mark then, and yes, it was quite a tale but one I am willing to recount. It is my pleasure to meet a Pharaoh so well remembered and beloved by history. Your people left many accounts of your rule and I have yet to find a reputable one which paints you in a negative light.”

Ahk seemed to inflate a little bit with pride, “And the disreputable ones?”

“Well, let’s just say that anything written during the tyrannical reign of the fifth king is considered so much bollox.”

Ahk smiled slightly, as Larry careened up the steps having finally noticed that Alex was awake, skidding into the midst of the group, gasping as he tried to catch his breath. “Oh good, you’re awake and acquainted with the night actors. Mind telling me what’s in your boxes? The Neanderthals want to play Twister with the Knights and I really, really don’t want to accidentally injure some magic mumbo jumbo talisman. That is, if you believe in that sort of thing, which you probably don’t since you’re a professional and, uh, whatnot.”

“Lawrence,” Teddy spoke gently, “He knows.”

“WHAT!? Really, guys!” Larry threw up his hands, allowing Alex to catch a glimpse of something on the man’s inner wrist, something very familiar. “I have so few rules and like the biggest one is don’t let people know about magic! They usually freak out and,” he frowned in puzzlement, putting his arms down, “you’re not freaking out. Why aren’t you freaking out?”

Alex grinned, “When I was a kid I accidentally put on the Bracelet of Anubis in an attempt to keep it out of the hands of a cult run by the curator of the British Museum who was hell bent on raising Imhotep, an undead evil priest, in order to battle the Scorpion King, who, by the way, only wakes up every 5000 years in order to mess with people. They wanted his army of the undead for the usual reasons. You know, world domination and whatnot. Scared my parents half to death, and these were people who had fought Imhotep the first time around.”

Larry’s mouth dropped open. “So uh, this is nothing new then?”

“Not really. Although running into a mummy who isn’t trying to kill me is a nice change of pace. Sand is such a devil to get out of your clothing and if I never see another sandstorm with a villain’s face popping out of it like a bad greeting card, I’ll have lived a happy life.”

“Now that’s just tacky,” Ahk muttered to Sacagawea, “putting your face on sandstorms was so passé by the time I came along.” Sac hid a smile and decided that Alex wasn’t really a threat after all, given how quickly Ahkmenrah was taking to him.  Raising his voice Ahk continued, “The Bracelet of Anubis was said to be protected by Nefertiri and her followers. How did it come to be in your possession?”

“Let’s just say that reincarnation and karma are fickle mistresses.”

Larry felt his mind start to glaze over as talk of reincarnated princesses and pre-ordained warriors and collapsing cities with pygmy mummies flew back and forth between the Egyptologist and the revived Pharaoh, punctuated by Teddy’s exclamations and Sac’s quiet commentary.

This was most definitely above his skill level.

XXX

Nicky knew that he wasn’t supposed to snoop through the boxes whenever the delivery guys left something to be set up as an exhibit. But knowing something and stifling the curiosity he felt were two completely different things.

Besides, everyone else was distracted by his Dad forcibly moving their Twister game off the boxes and closer to Rexy’s pedestal, claiming that, “For heaven’s sake guys, not on the breakable magic stuff!” His father’s momentary distraction was all Nicky needed to dive into one of the unattended crates and pull out something to look at as he darted off deeper into the museum.

The heavy black book weighed against him as he headed for the quiet space of the cafeteria.

XXX

It was several hours, three relocations of Twister, a game of rushed hallway hockey, and an explanation to Lewis and Clark that just because you could track Attila based on his ever growing trail of popcorn, doesn’t mean you should later, that Larry realized not only was he exhausted but Ahk and Alex were still talking, having relocated to his office while Sacagawea and Teddy took advantage of what remained of their evening.

Coming in to check on them, he was surprised when Alex stood up, promptly bid Ahkmenrah something in Egyptian (Larry hadn’t even noticed they weren’t speaking English anymore, that was how tired he’d become), and pulled Larry off down a corridor, talking as they strode into some more dimly lit halls.

“Listen to me Larry and listen very carefully because it seems you’ve got a bloody short attention span from what I’ve seen,” Alex pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration as Larry tried to focus on him around a tired yawn. Figures they’d get to this unexpected, although necessary conversation closer to dawn when the man was running on fumes and espresso after the chaos Alex had unwittingly brought with him and the general mayhem of the museum. “I’ve been talking to Ahkmenrah all evening and one thing has stood out to me. You don’t seem to have realized that you are a reincarnated Medjai Guardian, tasked with protecting Pharaoh Ahkmenrah, Fourth King of the Fourth Kings, Ruler of Egypt. That is why you are here, in this museum, night after night, when you could indeed be famous as the next inventor of edible cellophane or glow in the dark biscuits or something.”

He pushed up his sleeve to show Larry a complicated, yet all too familiar, Egyptian tattoo.

Larry stared at him blankly. “You think I’m reincarnated because we share a tattoo that I drunkenly got one spring break in undergrad? Maybe it was popular that year!” Larry shrugged, taking in Alex’s advanced age, “Maybe it was popular for a lot of years, yeah?” 

“Look, my father had that same tattoo which Ardeth revealed to our family as the mark of the Medjai. I earned it,” he shook his thin right wrist at the skeptical night guard, “by going through the rigorous training necessary to protect things which are much better kept out of the public eye. Now can you honestly tell me that you can believe in a magic tablet which brings this whole museum to life, including wax figurines with no historical counterparts, an Easter Island Head addicted to gum, and _the 26 th President of your ruddy country_, but you can’t believe that you might be reincarnated?”

He received a shrug in response. “I’m just Larry the Night Guard, dude. If I was reincarnated I think I’d know. I’d probably have better luck or something. Also, kudos on catching on to so much about the Mueseum inhabitants in one evening!”

Alex stopped them, dropping onto a nearby bench. “Just answer me something then. If I were to say to you, ‘I am stranger travelling from the East seeking that which is lost’ you would reply?” Larry frowned deeply, as if he were trying to remember something once overheard in the distant past.

“I guess I would reply with something mystic like, “I am a stranger travelling from the West, it is I whom you seek?” He trailed off at the end as if he were worried of sounding ridiculous at 5 in the morning with no one but an old adventurer to hear his words fade into the museum walls. “But that’s silly and if someone actually replied to my question like that I’d question their sanity.”

Alex prayed to the ghost of his dearly departed father to give him patience because as far as allies went, Larry was more akin to Uncle Jon than Ardeth in the common sense department. “Why do you think they call you Guardian of Brooklyn, and please don’t say it’s because you protect the museum. Give the Boy King some credit, he recognized what you were immediately.”

“What I am is a failed inventor and a father, who just happens to help out a museum that comes to life.” Larry replied stubbornly. “Anyone can do it. Three terrible guys did it before me! Besides, if I were reincarnated, wouldn’t I have all sorts of weird dreams and déjà vu and skills or something,” Larry trailed off as something hit him, the memory of fighting a malignant, megalomaniacal ex-Pharaoh not so long ago with nothing but a flashlight, how the moves seemed to come to him, how that with minimal training he’d learned so much from the museum inhabitants.

“Yeah,” Alex grinned, “I didn’t think a guy who was ‘just Larry the Night Guard’ could take down Kahmunrah the Bloodthirsy either, but Ahkmenrah was adamant and I’ve seen far stranger things.”

XXX

Nicky settled onto the plastic tables with a sigh, dropping the heavy book down before him. It was made of what looked like pure black stone, sucking the light in around it, with an oddly decorative locking mechanism that seemed to require a massive key to get it undone. The only reason he recognized the deep and highly stylized indent for what it was had to do with last week’s Movie Night, where Jed had insisted that they watch Anastasia three times in a row because Dimitri was cool and Octavius liked the musical numbers.

(Nicky didn’t tell him that everyone knew it was really Jed who liked the musical numbers, but since Ahk had been fascinated with the film, even after three back to back viewings and Octavius had just sighed good naturedly, Nicky kept quiet. His adopted big brother needed more things that made him smile anyways.)

Now he was faced with a conundrum. How was he supposed to open this book if it required a key he didn’t have? He didn’t have to ponder long as a chattering laugh brought his attention downward. Dexter, it seemed, had escaped the confines of the Hall of African Mammals and was offering him a box cheekily, as if he wanted to play a game of keep away.

Nicky snatched it before the capuchin could change his mind, fiddling with it until it fanned outwards, the prongs matching perfectly with the book before him. Turning the key in the lock as Dexter perched on his shoulder, he paused as the lights flickered momentarily.

No, he was being silly. The book couldn’t cause that. It was just a book. And after all, no harm had ever come from reading a book.

Nicky cracked it open, delighted to see that his lessons on hieroglyphics with Ahk were enough to comprehend what was written, and began to read, sounding the words out loud as he went.

The lights around him dimmed and fizzled, a sudden wind howling through the room and throwing the chairs closest to the door over in the gale as Nicky clammed up, hoping that whatever it was would go away if he just quit reading.

There was a blinding flash from both the fluorescents and the ether and then…

The men came out of nowhere, limned by the fading light as it dimmed back to normal. They stared at him in confusion and then somewhat skeptical delight, giving Nicky pause. One was bald, dressed in what looked like the smallest shendyt he’d ever seen, a transparently useless shawl, and a fancy amulet while the other was, well, as elaborate as Ahk in some odd combination of golden breastplate and massive crown, with flowing, braided hair.  They stared at the museum’s cafeteria with a hunger that scared Nicky, as if they were casing the place for a robbery, before focusing on both the dropped Black Book, key and him.

“ _What a clever child_ ,” the elaborately dressed one spoke first in Ancient Egyptian, “ _I assume that our language has long faded from common usage and yet the gods do provide, don’t they?_ ” He turned to the man next to him who laughed, a sharp, short sound that grated on Nicky’s ears and reminded him of his parents during a particularly nasty fight.

“ _Perhaps he can be of some use to us. I haven’t quite caught on to the language that has seemed so popular the last two times I returned_.”

Nicky had no desire to be a hostage to a creepy bald guy and his fashion disaster buddy. Scooping up the book he turned to run, only to find himself hoisted off the ground by the bald villain with the gaudy sense in jewelry, having moved faster than humanly possible in the merest of seconds between heartbeats.

He squirmed and struggled, kicking at the man’s bare chest in the hope that he’d let go of him if he caused enough pain, but the man just laughed, finding his actions humorously ineffective. His companion strode forward then, eyeing him up and down with the look of a man who hated children on principle and was more than happy to punish him for nothing more than breathing in his direction.

Nicky wasn’t quite sure how he’d managed to miss seeing the khopesh gleaming at his hip, shining in the bright glare of the cafeteria lights, sharp and wicked and altogether capable of killing him with a simple swipe. 

“Let me guess,” the man’s voice had a nasal, nasty quality to it, “English, correct? It seems you English speakers have quite the affinity for dabbling in that which either doesn’t concern you or would be best left untouched. Although,” the dark eyes took in his look of terrified defiance, “I can’t say that I’m all that upset young one. I never did like that realm and you should be rewarded handsomely for pulling my associate and me free of it.” He seemed to contemplate for a moment.

“I know the best reward,” he drew the syllables out with a softly mocking laugh, “you’ll help us and we won’t kill you first!”

“Like heck I will you _stupid son of a dung beetle!_ ”

The man smirked, reaching for his weapon, “ Your death, can of course, be arranged far sooner.”

Nicky yelped and backpedaled as best he could, before the hand was removed from the weapon, “However, I think we’ll hold off. Where there are children, there are adults, and where there are adults,” he spread his hands magnanimously, “There is a kingdom to conquer. Let’s go get yours, shall we?”

Nicky felt his heart sink and could only hope that he or the disappeared Dexter would be able to warn the others in time.

**Author's Note:**

> So, good, bad, ugly? Also, if you can guess the three secret organizations, vying for Alex’s expertise, you get virtual cookies! They come from three separate fandoms, unrelated to these two, separate fandoms which won’t be making an appearance and were here for the fun factor of a shout out. ;)


End file.
